Bethel Joins Hands to Support Historic Sports Competition

For any high-school sports team, qualifying for a state championship is reason enough to celebrate. Yet, the people of Bethel took town pride a step farther one recent Saturday, when the Bethel High School varsity girls’ basketball team played in the 2025 Connecticut CIAC Class L tournament championship.

Bethel townspeople raised more than $4,000, enabling approximately 100 Bethel High School students to attend the tournament, which took place March 15 at the Mohegan Sun Arena. What’s more, hundreds of townspeople got in their cars and drove 90 miles to the opposite corner of the state to witness the Wildcat girls play against West Hartford’s Northwest Catholic High School.

Although the Wildcats lost 56-40, witnessing the team’s first-ever appearance in a state championship was both thrilling – and a strong testament to the small-town spirit that defines this town of 20,000 people.

“The Mohegan Sun Arena is a professional venue with a WNBA court,” said Mark Caron, the school’s athletic director. “The state championship drew a crowd of 3,500 people – including lots of Bethel residents who came a long way to cheer on their home team. For all of us, seeing that sea of maroon in the stands at the Mohegan Sun Arena was really, really cool.”

CIAC is an acronym that denotes the Connecticut Interscholastic Athletic Conference, the nonprofit group responsible for high-school athletics throughout the state, while “Class L” is a size category, with “L” schools falling smack in the middle.

“Qualifying for the state championship owed to the skill and experience of the seniors who played on the team this year”, said Head Coach Dani Scolpino. Scolpino began her tenure as the Wildcats head coach in 2022, previously served as a junior varsity coach, and is from a three-generation Bethel family.

“This year, there were five seniors on our team – three of whom already committed to play basketball when they enter colleges this fall,” said Scolpino. “Those three students are Emma Huedepohl, Aiden Gill, and Summer Wish,”

“It’s very unusual to have three players already chosen for college teams on a public high school basketball team,” added Caron. “We knew this group was special – it was a question of just how far they would be able to go.”

Getting to the state championship level was quite a feat for yet another reason: demographics. As a parochial school, Northwest Catholic draws on a large, diverse geographical area, and can recruit students for this purpose. In contrast, students – and, by default, athletes – at Bethel High School all live within the town limits, so this type of recruitment doesn’t exist locally.

The Wildcats made up for that underdog status in both determination – and dogged practice. “Our girls had a strong team this year,” said Caron. “First, they won the Southwestern Conference Championship. The last time they captured that trophy was in 2017.”

Scolpino also pointed out that Bethel runs basketball youth camps throughout the year, in which all team members take part. “It’s important to invest in young athletes early and bring them into a culture that’s positive, uplifting, and centered around support for one another,” she said.  

Caron said Scolpino was an especially good pick as head coach. “She’s an alum, and the kids love her,” said Caron, who’s now in his ninth year at Bethel High School and previously coached at Fairfield Ward High School.

Caron also praised the school’s All Sports Booster Club for well exceeding expectations in building buzz for the Mohegan Sun championship – and raising a whopping sum of money. This event was two hours away from town, and Bethel teams rarely have ventured so far away.

“A lot of students wanted to attend, and the Booster Club wanted as many students as possible to go,” said Caron. In less than a week, the club raised enough to charter two motorcoaches for the event – as well as to pay for their tickets and food vouchers.

Booster Club President Greg Henry credited the generosity of three people in Bethel for helping put the fundraising effort over the top. Selectman Bryan Terzian, an assistant VP at Newtown Savings Bank initially offered to kick in $1,000, which at $10 a head would enable 100 kids to attend the game.

“He later agreed to pay for their admission as well as for the transportation and admission of another busload of students,” said Henry. Dan Mottola, owner of the Putnam House restaurant in Downtown Bethel, contributed enough to provide each of the students on the two buses with a $20 food voucher – a donation amounting to approximately $2,000.

Meanwhile, Denise Musser, the student activities director at Bethel High School, utilized her network of contacts among alumni, parents, and Bethel residents to put the haul well over the $4,000 mark.

“This event was a special one,” said Henry, ”because of the distance”. Uncasville, where the Mohegan Sun Arena and the casino of the same name are located, is about 12 miles from the Rhode Island border, while Bethel is equally as close to New York.

“The events our teams go to are usually much closer,” said Henry. “We couldn’t be much further from Mohegan Sun and still be in Connecticut. We were taken aback by the response from the community – the donations kept coming and coming!”

This is not the first time the All-Sports Booster Club has proved its mettle in the fundraising department, either. Club members are at the end of two significant fundraising endeavors.

The larger of these involved raising $60,000 for three new scoreboards, a project that’s almost complete. The scoreboards will be used by the school’s varsity softball, baseball, and football teams. The total price tag was $80,000; school district funding provided the remaining $20,000. More recently, the Club launched a commemorative-brick program, the proceeds from which will go to purchase new equipment for the high school’s weight room.

“To the entire Bethel community, thank you from the bottom of my heart!” Scolpino said. “It was a wonderful thing to be at Mohegan Sun that day, and this is something all of the students who were able to attend will remember for the rest of their lives.”

What’s the outlook for next year’s girls’ basketball team? Scolpino is optimistic. “True, we’re losing six seniors – but as in any workplace, people come and people go and we still have all our other players. We have a strong, good group of girls coming back to play next year.”

Leading the Charge

Head Coach Dani Scolpino credits the team’s three college signees with scoring the most points thus far for the girls’ basketball team this year:

Emma Huedepohl scored her 1,000^th point this year, making her the third player in Bethel High School’s history to achieve that mark. Huedepohl was also All-Southwest Conference (SWC) during her sophomore, junior, and senior years, and in her junior year earned All-State honors. She will play for New York’s Houghton University next year.

Aiden Gill scored 362 points in this one season alone, was All-SWC her senior year, and All-Division her junior year. She will play for New York’s Union College next year.

Summer Wish scored 177 points in this season alone and was All-Division her junior and senior years. She will play for Oberlin University in Ohio next year.